


Death in Minnesota

by King_Orry



Category: Fargo (TV), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 19th Century, Alternate History, Death, Minnesota, Multi, Murder, Mystery, Plague, Suicide, gonna get spooky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 09:14:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9812771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/King_Orry/pseuds/King_Orry
Summary: 1887A dead man comes back to life amid fears of a deadly plague spreading across the United States.A detective from London looks for his lost companion and walks into a new realm of mystery and deception.





	

John Doe was born on the 7th of November 1887 at what the orderly said to be around 25-30 years of age. Around his neck, a fresh birthmark; a long scar that spanned across his upper neck to his ears, like the strap of leather under a helmet.

His first breath was taken under a broken crossbeam in an old woodshed in the forest. He was accompanied by a loop of hemp rope that hugged his windpipe, embracing and cradling his neck like a mother would to her child.

No-one was there to name him, there was no birth certificate. No-one was there to hold him and tell him who he was and what he meant to them. How much they loved him. Even from his first moments he was alone, wrenched from that pressing darkness. Thrown down from on high. Kicked in the stomach by God himself.

Lacking any ability to draw breath, he writhed and gasped on the floor. A landed fish for gutting. Kick drum heartbeat gaining speed, faster and faster. Shattering his ribs on each sinful contraction, it pounded and thrashed like an animal in a cage.

Even after clawing at his neck with boned hooks, loosening the stiff twine, it continued. Burning and pulsating as it struggled to shoo away the pale horse that death had rode in on. He lay on his back, clenching hold of the air, juddering with each vicious beat of life. He stayed there, staring at the closed heavens until the violent uncontrollable shaking lessened. Tapering, until he could finally breathe.

He pulled himself backwards onto a large roundel of wood and slumped. His hands linked and he pulled them close, willing the light to return to his eyes so that he could take in the place of his conception. To his left, a stool lay drunkenly on the floor, scattered and abandoned. The toppled chair and the loop of rope told him all he needed to know. Stale tears burned into his eyes.

At some point recently, his life had been broken. Broken beyond foreseeable repair. Broken enough that there had been no better option than to cease existence entirely. No better option than to take God’s gift and throw it at his feet. To eject himself entirely from life.

Through blurred eyes, he scanned the room for more information. Anything that might lead him to the questions that rushed through his mind like a track of impure and dark thoughts. Then in a great collision they became one singular question, looming in that barely conscious mind as a spectre.

Why?

Had this been done of spite? Hate; guilt; sadness; shame; love?

He struggled to think of anyone he had wronged, or anyone who had wronged him, and that spiralling train of questions took him back down to hell. Aided by the great stream of passing thoughts, until the current snagged and tugged at his leg. And then he was washed away too. Lost in a river of dark, sad dispersant emotions. Pulled back and forth, hitting rock after rock. Left completely out of control in the rapids of his own mind, until finally with inhuman effort he forced himself out. Escaping with the daunting realisation that he knew nothing.

There was no-one. There was nobody he knew and there was nobody he could remember. He had no memory of any face, or of any home. No nostalgic vision for past thoughts and desires. There was nothing he could remember. This awareness scared him more than anything else in the room; more than the pile of grey ash in the corner; more than the dry blood on the floor.

He was alone, utterly and completely alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick prologue to a story I've had on my mind for a while.  
> Constructive Criticism is very welcome.
> 
> Enjoy ;)


End file.
